Taxes prove to be a major source of income for governments across the globe.
Stats suggest that total taxation revenue collected in Australia increased $31,234m (5.9%) from $528,599m in 2017-18 to $559,833m in 2018-19.
As citizens, filing taxes is an activity all of us need to repeat every year. Most times, taxes can be a burden because we are not fully aware of the various legalities of the process. This finds us looking for tax advice, which is generally quite costly. If you are looking to get tax advice on a very limited budget, you are not alone.
There are a number of ways to get cheap and reliable tax advice. Here are the best ones:
Free or Inexpensive Legal Clinics
A number of legal clinics have been set up to help provide tax assistance to people who can’t afford to pay high rates for getting advice on anything related to their taxes. Most of these clinics are being set up by official tax authorities to ensure that a majority of people find it easier to pay tax without having to spend extra money to do so.
Besides the ones set up by official authorities, there are several that have been established by NGOs or legal experts. To save money on tax advice, getting in touch with the nearest legal clinic will be of great help. Along with saving money, you will be able to get reliable advice from people who are experts in the field. Those clinics that are run by authorities, would in fact be more reliable than many private tax settlement firms.
You can look for such a clinic near you and contact them to inquire about their fees and the services they provide. Most of these clinics also have a certain income limit to determine if you are eligible for availing of their services.
Officially trained volunteers
Most official tax collecting agencies, like the IRS and the ATO, train a number of volunteers from time to time to enable them to provide their services to people who can’t afford tax advice from any other source. These volunteers are mostly present in all the districts of the country and can be approached to get tax advice for free or for very minimal costs.
There is, however, an income limit for the people who are eligible for availing the services of these volunteers. You can contact the volunteers in your district after finding their details on the official websites of the tax collection agencies and ask them about the income limit and other details you want to know.
Helplines
Just like in the case of volunteers, almost all tax collecting agencies have helplines that are active throughout the day and people can call them for free in order to ask any questions about their taxes. The agencies. Like ATO, have specialists for all types of questions so when you call the helplines you might find yourself having to wait for a few moments till you are transferred to the relevant department.
However, this is one of the best ways to get free and extremely reliable tax advice. Unlike legal clinics and official tax volunteer services, there is no sort of income limit or any other restriction to avail of the helpline services. All you need to do is make a list of the questions you have and dial the numbers provided on the tax collection agency’s official website.
Free Tax Software
Just like with every other thing nowadays, there are softwares to help people get advice on taxes. You will find several free tax software on the internet. However, make sure that you go with one that has been already used by a number of people and has some positive reviews. Otherwise, you might end up getting poor tax advice that will actually cost you more than the amount you would have paid otherwise.
Most software offers some basic assistance like calculating your taxes for you with all the deductions and credits and filing them for you electronically. You can look for specific details of the services each software provides to choose the one that most suits your needs.
Over to you…
If you are living in Australia, one of the best ways to get reliable and affordable tax advice is to take help from Taxopia. They have helped thousands of people with their taxes and business activity statements for clients across Australia.
